The Scientific Method
by Settiai
Summary: Everything was going perfectly well until the door slammed shut behind them.


Title: The Scientific Method

Author: Settiai

Disclaimer: "Stargate SG-1" and other related characters belong to their copyright holders. No infringement is intended. This story, such as it is, was written as a sign of respect and love for the characters, the series, and their creator. I claim no ownership of the aforementioned series and characters.

Rating: PG

Summary: Everything was going perfectly well until the door slammed shut behind them.

Feedback: Comments and helpful criticisms are **always** appreciated.

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As the four of them made their way through the forest, Sam couldn't help but smile.

For once, nothing about the mission seemed to bode ill toward SG-1. The weather and plant life on P3X-563 were similar to several semi-tropical regions on Earth, and the planet appeared to be uninhabited. In fact, if it hadn't been for some obviously ancient ruins several miles from the 'gate, they might have assumed that the planet had never housed any type of advanced life.

The short hike to the ruins was uneventful, and for the first time in months all four team members were apparently enjoying the mission. The comfortable weather was enough to put Jack at ease, while Daniel's mind was focused entirely on exploring the ancient buildings that were visible in the near distance. Even Teal'c seemed to be content with the peacefulness of their surroundings as they made their way out of the woods and into a large clearing with several buildings.

"Daniel, don't touch anything!"

Sam flinched as the colonel's voice broke the peaceful silence, and she quickly turned her gaze away from Teal'c and back toward the other two members of the team. Daniel had somehow managed to make his way halfway across the clearing before the three of them had even reached the end of the trees, and he was kneeling in front of what looked like a rather small stone obelisk sticking out of the ground.

Even though he hadn't risen from his knees, Daniel had turned his head around so that he was looking in their direction. The expression on his face was a combination of irritation and amusement, and it didn't take a genius to realize that his gaze was focused on O'Neill. "Trust me, Jack, it's not going to explode," he said dryly.

The colonel just shook his head as he made his way toward Daniel's position, followed close by both Sam and Teal'c. "That's what you said last time."

"I believe, O'Neill, that the 'last time' you speak of involved a Goa'uld computer system," Teal'c pointed out matter-of-factly.

As they came to a stop behind Daniel, Jack raised an eyebrow. "So?"

Sam struggled to keep a straight face as Daniel rolled his eyes at the colonel. "This is a rock, sir," she said after a moment or two. "From my experience, rocks are much less likely to explode than already unstable Goa'uld technology."

Jack stared at her for a moment before glancing up at the sky. "Would it kill you to make them at least pretend that I'm in charge?" he muttered.

Daniel just ignored Jack, instead shooting her a mock-hurt look. "This is much more than a rock, Sam."

Teal'c merely raised an eyebrow, something akin to amusement on his face.

Sam resisted the urge to roll her eyes, choosing instead to give Teal'c a helpless shrug as Daniel suddenly grinned and pushed himself to his feet. "If I'm reading this correctly, then the building to the far left was some type of library," he said eagerly, shooting Jack a hopeful look. "I think that's the first place we should check out."

Jack stared at him for a moment before reluctantly nodding. Daniel's grin grew even broader as he quickly set off in the direction of the building. The colonel, in the meantime, glanced over at Sam and Teal'c with a raised eyebrow. "Did he say _if_?"

Sam nodded, and she struggled to keep from smiling as Jack grumbled under his breath and started after Daniel. "What do you mean by _if_ you're reading it correctly?"

Shaking her head, Sam adjusted the pack on her back and glanced over at Teal'c. "Shall we?" she asked dryly, gesturing after O'Neill and Daniel.

"Indeed," he replied, nodding slightly.

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Sam paused in the doorway of the ruins for a second, not attempting to hide the surprised look on her face. She wasn't entirely certain what she had expected ... but it certainly wasn't what was there. If nothing else, the ruins appeared massive on the outside, but the room she was standing in the doorway of was even smaller than her quarters back at the SGC.

"This is it?" she asked, a hint of disappointment in her voice as she glanced around the dark and empty room. There were no windows, no other doors ... it looked like nothing more than a storage closet.

Several feet to her right, Jack cleared his throat. "That's pretty much exactly what I said, Carter."

"And, like I told you - no, this isn't _it_," Daniel replied, a distracted tone in his voice as he walked around the room, carefully examining the walls. "There's got to be a secret panel or something."

The colonel snorted, and Sam just shook her head as she stepped out of the doorway to let Teal'c into the room. If Daniel was right, then he'd find a way to open a hidden door and the team would be able to explore wherever such an entrance would lead. Eventually. If not, then they'd have at least a few hours' wait before O'Neill would finally convince the archeologist that there wasn't anything there.

Either way, they were in for a wait.

Other than that, everything was going perfectly well until the door slammed shut behind them.

And then it disappeared completely.

Daniel let out a startled cry, and both Sam and Jack jumped slightly at the unexpected noise. Then, for several seconds, they didn't say a word, instead just staring at each other mutely in the murky light given off by Daniel's flashlight.

"Oh, that's not good," the colonel finally muttered.

Teal'c nodded in acquiescence, while Daniel stared blankly at where the door had been. "What just happened?"

Sam stood there a minute before shaking her head. "It's impossible," she said. "The doorway was nothing more than a rectangle cut into the stone. There's no possible way for it to ... do that." She gestured weakly at the now apparently solid wall. "Not if it's just stone."

Jack frowned and pulled out his flashlight, shining it on the apparently seamless wall. Then he took a few steps forward and carefully tapped the space where the door had been with his knuckles. Stopping almost immediately, he flinched as he pulled his hand away from the wall; then he turned back towards the others. "Are you sure, Carter? Because it feels like solid stone to me."

Daniel shook his head. "Sam's right," he said, stepping forward to look more closely at the wall himself. "If it was some kind of ancient booby-trap, there would have been cuts at the top of the door where the stone wall would fall down. Trust me, I checked for those before I took one step inside."

"Something you learned from past experience?" Jack asked wryly.

Daniel ignored him. "It's almost as if the door was never there to begin with," he continued on. "If it was some kind of trap, we should still be able to see cracks around where the door was.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sam noticed a sliver of light coming from several feet away. Still keeping an ear on the conversation, she took a few steps over and knelt down to investigate. She ran her fingers over the sliver of light, gently feeling the stone that surrounded it.

"Perhaps it is an illusion," Teal'c suggested.

"Was no one listening when I said that it felt like solid rock?" Jack asked exasperatedly. "I'm pretty sure that means it's not some kind of illusion."

Without warning, the stone under her hand pressed into the wall, and the small sliver of light she had been studying suddenly widened to reveal a rather sophisticated control panel. "I'm not so sure about that, sir."

Despite the situation, Sam couldn't help but smile as the other three gathered around her. She glanced and shrugged when she saw that the colonel was staring down at her. "I've seen some technology similar to this before," she said. "It looks as if Teal'c might be right about it only being an illusion that there isn't a door there."

Jack frowned again. "Did you not hear the 'felt like solid rock' part?" he asked.

Sam shook her head. "I think it's a force field, sir," she explained. "It just has some type of holographic projection around it to make it look as if it's solid."

The colonel started to ask something else, but Sam held up a finger and glanced over at Daniel. "Daniel, does this look like Furling technology to you?"

He knelt down beside her and studied the panel for a second. "You know, you might be right about that," he said after a few seconds. "It's a little different that anything else we've come across so far, but it might just be from an earlier or later period in time."

Sam grinned at him. "That's all I needed to know."

Without hesitating, she reached into the panel and pulled out several of the crystals inside. Jack coughed. "Are you sure you want to be doing that?" he asked, a hint of worry in his voice.

"I know what I'm doing, sir," she replied, her eyes twinkling a bit. She quickly switched around the crystals she had removed, inserting them inside the panel in different places than they had originally been.

Without warning, the doorway suddenly reappeared.

O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "Okay, Carter, I'll admit it ... I'm impressed."

Sam shrugged as she let him pull her to her feet. "It was similar to some technology we found last year," she explained.

As the four of them stepped outside of the ruins, the colonel paused. "You mean that thing we found on the planet with the six moons that were always in the sky?"

When Sam nodded, Daniel's eye lit up in comprehension and he shot her an impressed look. Jack, on the other hand, just stared at her. "You managed to get us out of there based on some knowledge you'd gotten from a toy?" he spluttered.

Teal'c bowed his head toward her just a little. "That is most impressive, Major Carter."

A sheepish expression appeared on Sam's face as she avoided their gaze. "Well, it was a very advanced toy," she pointed out.

Daniel snorted. "That's for sure. Bill had been working with that thing for weeks before you figured out it was the Furling equivalent of a Gameboy."

Sam shrugged once before quickly changing the subject. "Are we going to explore some more of the buildings?" she asked. "Or should we head back to the Stargate and let the science teams take over?"

"Well, of course we're going to explore some more of the buildings," Daniel shot back immediately, his words overlapping with Jack's. "We're heading back to the 'gate."

And, just like that, everything was back to normal.


End file.
